It took us almost ten minutes, but Tam and I slunk down to a dense line of scrub brush about thousand meters from the Otokar APCs. I could hear sobbing and distant laughter.
I nestled the Vychlop to my shoulder and lased the distance to the closest sentry—a raggedy man shape in my scope. Tam lay ten yards to my right, unfolding the bipod on a Polish Tor 12.7mm anti-material rifle. The security detail stood between us and the town.
We had to put down the dogs first.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – Recoil
Bowna Town, near Ceel Baxay, Somaliland
3:59 to go.
The thing that gets you is the cruelty. As if murder isn’t brutal enough, the sheer savagery of genocide stops you in your tracks. You stumble across the aftermath, ugly little postscripts that make you retch, and all you can do is retreat into numbness. It’s too much to process.
I’d just stopped a rape. In a three-storey tenement on the edge of town, smashed doors on every landing, I followed the screaming to the second floor. The family had tried to keep the soldiers out. I stepped over their bodies on the way to the living room.
I shot three men and pulled them off a girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve. She flinched when I handed her some clothes. I made signs for her to run and hide, but she sat there, heaving with sobs, naked and unhearing. I left her cradling her dead father, her nut-brown face shiny with tears. There was nothing more I could do.
I ducked into an alley alongside the apartment and found six children—all decapitated. Someone had taken the time to stack their little bodies against a wall. Two of them were tiny, babies probably learning how to smile. I grabbed that image before it could spread and hurried to the front of the building. I didn’t come across their heads—thank God.
Tam exited a house across the street. He was wiping blood off the blade of his Kershaw, a flat look on his face. We knelt behind a wedge of brick stairs, and neither of us spoke. Sometimes words only make it worse.
The soldiers must have started in this neighborhood. The executed made a gauntlet of crumpled, awkward poses down the street. Car windshields were riddled with bullet holes and blood. Flames muttered in nearby buildings and sent black smoke boiling out the broken windows. The air was hot, choking with burning rubber, reeking of human waste and the cloy of roasting pork.
Automatic weapons stuttered north of us, from the center of town. Duub Cas was still at it.
Twelve years of combat on three continents, Tam and I had only seen this brand of gruesome on three other occasions—once in the Balkans, the other two in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It’s uncut nightmare fodder, like hell on some kind of timeshare plan. Familiarity doesn’t lessen the shock.
3:03.
The Triplets had cleared the houses on the Boorama Road one block away. That would be their line of advance. Tam and I would stay parallel with them, moving up this nameless, secondary avenue that ran through town. We had no idea exactly how many government troops there were, or how stiff their resistance would be, but our plan was to knock them off balance with firepower, keep the pressure on, and herd the looting, raping, murderous bastards north toward the Ukrainian ambush. Not the brightest plan, but it was the only one we had at the moment. Besides, the knot of rage in my gut was shorting out any serious objectivity. I even thought about praying for divine assistance, but I changed my mind. Looking at the street, I figured God didn’t want anything to do with this.
2:38. Cue the mayhem.
I glanced over my shoulder. At a hundred meters, the Duub Cas transport trucks looked almost normal. Mopsy had left the drivers propped upright in the cabs, holding the steering wheels. The rest of the soldiers had been tossed in one of the covered flat beds. The surprise was that each truck had a five-minute timer and a two-kilogram block of C4 wedged next to the gas tank. Tam had rigged the Otokar APC out on the southern plains the same way.
It had been easy to eliminate the security detail. When Bowna was attacked, some women had sought the safety of the hills and had run straight into the government forces. Tam and I put four of the Duub Cas rapists on the dirt before the others realized something was wrong. Curro was right: they weren’t used to people fighting back. The rest of the bastards made the brilliant tactical decision to pop up like prairie dogs to try and spot where our shots were coming from.
Years ago, when I was still regular army, a pretty girl in a Dublin pub asked me what I felt when I shot terrorists. Half in the bag, I almost blurted out, “Recoil,” but my hormones stopped me. I played the sensitive card and murmured something teary. I don’t remember what it was, but it didn’t work. I was staring at her chest when I said it.
Every soldier knows people get killed; that’s the whole point of combat. It takes a little longer to figure out that some people need to get killed sooner than others.
1:59.
Crouched behind the stairs, I holstered my Blizzard SMG and yanked the Milkor MGL off my back. The first rule of a gunfight is bring a big gun. A 40mm grenade launcher, the Milkor resembles a huge, six-shot revolver with a rifle stock and a front grip. Bulky, ugly and a pain to reload, the only good news was that I could empty its rotating cylinder in less than three seconds. It could effectively demolish everything in a forty-five-by-thirty-meter area in about the time it takes to sneeze.
There were six rounds in the tubes, another twelve in my combat pack, and I’d slung two belts with another twenty-four cross-wise across my chest. I looked like a bandito at high noon, but nothing says “go away” like a storm of 40mm high-explosive rounds.
1:09.
Poet9’s voice crackled in my headset. “Not a peep on the National Army channels. You guys are subterranean.”
“Not for long,” Tam answered. “Cottontail, everything clear over there?”
“Affirmative. Area clear.”
“Any civilians?” Tam asked.
“We found four children and their father hiding in a basement. We sent them out of the danger area south toward Poet9 and Curro’s position.”
“Got ’em, Devante?”
“Curro’s waving them over the hill now,” the Mexican replied. “They’re in bad shape but moving pretty fast.”
“You would be too,” I said. “It’s a horror show down here.”
“You sure you don’t need me?” Poet9 pleaded. “The Lockheed has automatic settings. Curro can—”
“Stay with the jammer,” Tam ordered. “We need you to watch our backs. You read me?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Remind the Legion to hold their fire until the kill box is full. We need the first burst to take out as many as possible so the rest will panic. Got it?”
“Whites of their eyes. I’ll tell ’em.”
“Cottontail, you ready?” he asked.
“Affirmative. Prepared to advance on your signal,” came the soft reply.
“No prisoners. No stopping. Drive them all north.”
“No prisoners. No stopping. Understood, Mr. Tam.”
“Good. See you on the other side. Out.”
“Out.”
0:41.
Tam clicked off. I looked over at him. “Here’s hoping the lads from Kiev passed the marksmanship course.”
He hefted his Tavor TAR 24 and smiled. “With any luck, the Duub Cas will be so bunched up, it won’t matter. You good?”
“I got a choice?” I smiled back. “Just make sure you keep up with me.”
That earned a chuckle, nothing else.
I kept my eyes off my watch. My body knew the countdown was happening. Adrenaline sang in my blood. There would be no stealth, no running black on this one. We were going for shock and awe. The sound and the fury. Explosions and screaming.
Everything slowed to a snail’s pace. I double-checked the Milkor, adjusted my ammo belts, and shifted my pack higher to free my legs. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears. I steadied my breathing and rose to a crouch like a runner in the blocks.
Coiled.
Waiting.
I was already moving when the trucks exploded in a geyser of flame and sound. I felt the shockwave slam my back like a wave of thunder. Ten steps later, I heard the Otokar on the southern plains go up. The gunfire in the center of town paused. Stopped. Tam and I broke into a sprint.
Two blocks up, a squad of red-bereted troopers were looting a small market. There was an old man slumped in the entrance, his throat cut. They stepped over him, arms loaded with canned goods and bottles of beer, laughing as they slipped in his blood.
Two grenades blew them through the plate-glass storefront. An officer stuck his head out of a third floor window, astonished. Tam shot him in the face, and he dropped to the sidewalk like a sack of laundry. No one else appeared. We ran on.
Another block, four soldiers and an NCO burst out of out a drug store with their weapons up. Their shots went wild. We cut them down without stopping.
Weaving among burning cars, I heard the crack of AK-108’s over on the Boorama Road, and the distinct rip of G.E. miniguns answering. The Triplets were staying busy too.
Ahead, the road angled around a large dirt lot filled with market stalls. Food and cheap goods were spilled on the ground, trampled like junk. Striped awnings flapped in the wind like shredded flags. One of the donkey-wagons was on fire. Trash and newspaper twisted in the dusty smoke. Somewhere in the confusion a goat bleated, and I saw a mangy stray gnawing on a lump of meat. There was a crimson blood slick in the center of the lot, littered with hunks of pink and brown flesh. Body parts, maybe twenty people hacked to pieces. Tam shot the stray. We kept running.
On the far side of the market, four women rushed out of a burning house. They were caked with filth and soot, clutching ratty burlap sacks and bawling infants. They dropped to their knees when we ran up and started wailing, waving their arms in surrender.
Tam yelled at them in Somali, “Qax! Qax! Khatar.” Run away. Run away. Danger. He pointed down the road the way we’d come. “Qax,” he repeated, but they cringed and howled, too terrified to understand.
“Fuck this!” I blasted a round into the inferno behind them and sent a shower of noise and sparks skyward. They screamed, but I pulled them to their feet, shoving and yelling until they broke into a stumbling run. They glanced over their shoulders, fearful we’d shoot them in the back, but Tam and I ducked behind a battered Toyota pickup and watched until they passed the market.
In between breaths, I heard the Triplets’ guns and the crump of grenades farther up the Boorama Road; they were ahead of us. It seemed like the volume of fire north of us had picked up too. The echoes rattled down the narrow streets like drumbeats.
“We gotta keep moving,” Tam said.
“Gimma a sec.” I broke open the Milkor’s cylinder.
Curro’s voice came over the radio as I thumbed in reloads. “Poet9 says you need to watch your asses. There’s a concentration of troops just ahead of you in the middle of Bowna that’s going nuts trying to contact the security elements.”
“Acknowledged,” Tam answered.
“They know something’s wrong. They’re screaming bloody murder.”
Tam slapped another magazine into his rifle. “Murder is what we do.”
“How are you going to deal with them?” Curro asked.
“We’ll figure something out when we get there. The Legion in position?”
“Ready and waiting.”
“Good,” Tam replied. “You ready yet?” he asked me.
I slammed the launcher shut, and we took off up the street. My hackles rose half a block later; the hammer of automatic weapons had been joined by a swell of noise. My heart stopped. I’d heard it years ago in the Kosovo Protectorate—the wordless moan of a thousand voices sick with dread.
***
Bowna town Center was a three-hundred-meter wide, square plaza enclosed by a low, sand-colored concrete wall. There were arched entrances every fifty meters or so, with a grimy bronze statue of President-General Dhul-Fiqaar towering in the center. The general’s right arm was raised in benediction over a narrow patch of dust and weeds that must have been a flowerbed in a previous life. A small pavilion with peeling paint and sagging roof squatted beside the plinth.
Our road ended at the plaza’s southern side. The explosions and the sound of our guns had made the government soldiers nervous. A line of red-bereted heads peered over the top of the wall like tomatoes on a windowsill, guarding the approaching streets in our direction. The sight made me wish I’d brought my Vychlop, but none of them had spotted us yet.
The Boorama Road angled in on our right, then continued along the northern side of the square. A quick order to the Triplets pulled them up short to wait for our signal. Tam and I stepped into a doorway, staring at a scene from the seventh circle of hell. What was left of Bowna’s population was in that plaza.
The area seethed with humanity. Civilians were packed in like sheep, and like sheep, they were being herded in ragged lines and marked for slaughter. A handful of Duub Cas officers on the pavilion steps shouted over bullhorns in rapid Somali—all squelch, static and scorn.
On the north side, we could see women being prodded into the backs of covered trucks like the ones we’d blown up at the edge of town. Two boxy Russian TIGR jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns sat on either side of them. The gunners laughed and smoked cigarettes, mocking the women by firing in the air to make them cringe and scream. Every now and then, a girl was grabbed and dragged out of sight.
On our left, men and boys were clubbed and prodded against the side of a large brick building and shot. Terrified mobs surged toward their captors only to be cut down in swathes by massed machine gun fire. The clamor was an ice pick stabbing at my ears. The air was rancid with blood, shit and gunpowder.
I’d love to tell you that Tam and I surveyed the scene with some brand of cold, ruthless logic and formulated a brilliant plan of attack, but we didn’t. Beside me, Tam shook with revulsion. The air was feverish with slaughterhouse anguish, and terror jumped me like a feral lunatic. It was all I could do not to curl up and retch. This was evil—primal, visceral evil—and it shuddered through me, leaving the taste of bile and ash.
“We’ve got to get them off the civilians,” I heard Tam say. “Now.”
“How?” I croaked.
He clicked over to the Triplets. “I need you to piss on the hornets’ nest. Hit that TIGR on your side with RPGs in thirty seconds, then withdraw loud and proud. Pull them after you, then hold at two hundred meters. Understood?”
“Acknowledged. Rapid attack followed by feigned withdrawal. Will hold at two hundred meters. Engaging target in twenty-eight seconds,” Cottontail replied.
Tam turned to me and reined in his emotions. His voice was razor sharp and steady. “Once they’re chasing the Bunnies, we’ll hit ’em from the rear. If the civilians have the brains of a trout, they’ll bolt during the confusion. Got it?”
“Five of us against that?” I pointed. “Seems a bad idea.”
Tam slid a grenade into the under-barrel launcher. “Well, I’m fresh out of good ones. You ready?”
I shook my head clear and checked the Milkor. Six rounds loaded. “I’m ready.”
We crept forward for a better angle of fire. We hadn’t gone ten meters when two RPG rounds whistled down the Boorama Road and smashed into the right-hand jeep. The heavy tan vehicle slammed into the side of the truck next to it and came apart in a thunderous explosion. I saw the machine gunner go thirty feet straight up in the air.
The shooting stopped like flipping a switch. A single second of silence fell, like someone drawing a breath. Then panic erupted, the Somali survivors letting out a massive, combined scream that was as loud as the explosion.
The red-bereted Duub Cas soldiers swayed toward the new threat like wheat in the wind. Some began firing on full-auto, spraying any building or structure in that general direction. Others took cover behind the low wall. The pavilion officers started jabbering orders over their bullhorns, waving and pointing like frantic puppets. The
jeep on the left roared through the crowd, running people over, its heavy machine gun hammering away down the Boorama Road.
I heard the belch of a minigun, and the gunner disappeared in a spray of meat and blood. The Killer Bunnies were on the job.
At least fifty soldiers were clumped on the southeast corner, firing wildly down. I raised the Milkor, but Tam put a hand on my shoulder. Not yet.
Guards distracted, the civilians at the edge of the crowd started running away, fleeing down side streets and alleys. A number of soldiers were mobbed from behind, their red berets disappearing in a swirl of fists and feet. The pavilion officers were firing into the melee. Most of the survivors, however, simply fell to the ground, overwhelmed and terrified.
The Milkor was fat and heavy in my arms. Loaded and ready. My palms itched to shoot, to do anything other than kneel there and wait. Another soldier had climbed into the remaining TIGR’s turret ring and was swinging the machine gun’s long barrel side to side like a probing antenna, firing short bursts. With its armored sides and firepower, the TIGR was the immediate threat. The massive jeep surged forward, ramming and crushing more civilians. The driver was anxious to reinforce the firing line at the wall. The entire southeast corner was bright with muzzle flash, the volume of fire drowning out all other sound.
How anyone could survive down the firing lane that was the Boorama Road, I have no idea. There must have been a hundred soldiers at the wall by then, all frantically trying to kill their unknown attackers. But the Triplets did more than crouch behind cover. Even as more government troops rushed in, I saw knots of them go down to minigun bursts or single grenades. In scant minutes, the sheer weight of numbers would tell, but for the moment, the Triplets were keeping them from concentrating fire on any particular spot.
It had been less than four minutes since the first jeep exploded. The soldiers were bunching up, the crowd was in chaos and shrinking, but there were still far too many Somalis on the plaza. Tam and I had to move soon.
“We need to stampede the crowd. Hit the corner. I’ll cover you while you reload,” Tam said. “Then I’ll head for the trucks and get the civilians moving. Stay here and help the Triplets finish them off.”
Shift Tense: Eshu International Book 2 Page 13